I think I may have an infatuation, because of all the part modeling enhancements I find myself drawn to slots. See why by reading more.
Slots
There are many part modeling enhancements that I like, but there is only one that I have to mention simply because I mentioned it in assembly – slots.
I know many designers who under-utilize the power of slots. Many think that slots are a lazy designers way of getting out of doing a proper tolerance analysis. I look at slots as a way to control tolerancing – as a way to open up tolerances and to relieve the stack-up in a predefined manner thereby decreasing the cost of the part.
Slots, when properly designed can hold a tight tolerance in one direction while allowing the manufacturing tolerance stack-up to be accommodated in another direction without the need for shims or matched machining. It by no means relieves the designer of a proper tolerance stack-up analysis.
So when I see MCAD tools like Solidworks 2014 make generating slots easier (and utilizing them in the assembly environment), I know that my job as a machine designer is going to be easier and quicker. That’s a real return on investment in design software.
Increased Performance
Thanks to Matthew West and the Solidworks Blog for images and video.